Emily Liu’s Reviews > Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life > Status Update

This book is delightful

Radiolarians and diatoms have silica shells

Growing millet w white acacia in Niger 5x yield

Tiktaalik not first animal on land?? Actually anthropoids???

During the Cambrian explosion, new Cambrian life replaced the Ediacaran biota. The new life had more shells and protective outer shells as a result of increased predation. As a result, they could also burrow and dig into ocean floors more effectively than previously, and kicked up sediment and disturbed the microbial mats, creating tunnels. The sediments make it harder for sessile filter feeders, thus extinction

Seabirds deposit guano in the arctic, which then are converted by bacteria to ammonia which is released into atmosphere to turn into compounds that eventually seed clouds. So birds help keep the arctic cool. Beaver dens can last for centuries.